HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. — Mitt Romney sounded on Friday like his opponent is Democratic President Barack Obama, not anyone else seeking the Republican presidential nomination.

“The president has failed the American people,” the former Massachussetts governor told hundreds of supporters on Friday at a Veterans for Romney rally.

He arrived with South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and U.S. Sen. John McCain, who’ve stumped with him around the state as its Jan. 21 primary approaches.

Romney claimed Obama’s political inspiration is from “the European-style welfare state” and offered a description of how he thinks it operates.

“Government,” he said, “takes from some in order to give to others, and the only people who do well ... is the people who do the giving and the taking — the government.

“Europe isn’t working in Europe. It sure as heck won’t work here.”

The candidate also said the president wants to “fundamentally transform” the United States.

“I don’t want to transform America,” he said, setting up one of many applause lines. “I want to restore the principles that made America great.”

There was applause earlier as Romney began a sentence by saying Obama “is on track, during his first term, his only term by the way ....”

He went on to say the president is on his way to accumulating almost as much public debt as all previous presidents combined.

He also chastised Obama for his proposals to cut military spending.

“Some imagine,” he said, “that can we shrink our military ... and the world will somehow forgive us and not be hostile.

“I believe that weakness begets adventurism on the part of the world’s worst actors. The best ally peace has ever known is from a strong America, not a weak America.”

Leading in the latest poll in South Carolina, Romney didn’t mention any of his five GOP opponents. But, when she introduced him, Haley took an indirect potshot at two of them.

She was referring to Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former U.S. House Speaker and Georgia congressman Newt Gingrich. Both have accused the frontrunner of presiding over layoffs when he worked for the Bain Capital private equity group.

He was delayed, as he put it in a cellphone call the meeting room’s sound system amplified, “by the same traffic you guys have been in.”

He spoke to about 200 people packed into the room; many others heard him from an adjacent “overflow” room. About 50 people, a few of them shivering, stood on an outside balcony behind the meeting room.

It was an appreciative audience.

“I think we need someone in office who understands business and economics,” said Terry Green of Bluffton, “and who can get us out of this mess we’re in.”

John Paine of Hilton Head Island agreed.

“I think he has a better grasp of the economic situation,” Paine said, “and ... what needs to be done to get this country back on its feet... We’ve got to get the system working. It’s broken.”

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